Right now, the Twitter handle of Sanna Marin describes her as “Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland”. Now, however, that should change to Prime Minister of Finland since she was sworn in as the Prime Minister of her country on 10 December 2019. Hers is a remarkable story and not just because she is currently the world’s youngest PM but for several other reasons.
She is the third female PM of her country. She is the youngest currently serving Prime Minister anywhere in the world and the youngest that her country has ever had.
Marin heads a coalition government consisting of five parties. While she is from the Social Democratic Party which is left of centre, her coalition consists of the Left Alliance, Green League, Centre Party and Swedish People’s Party of Finland.
Her cabinet consists of 12 women and 7 male ministers. This is not unusual for Finland; a highly egalitarian society which has seen strong female leadership and representation at all levels of governance over the years.
One former PM of the country tweeted this. In spite of not being a part of the ruling dispensation, Alexander Stubb tweeted his support for the government; expressing his pride in the nation as a progressive, modern one.
Marin is the child of a same-sex couple. Being brought up by two mothers rather than the conventional mother-father parenting set up, she was reported as having said she felt invisible growing up, since she felt unable to open up about her family life. She was the first from her family to go to university and worked in a bakery during her teen years.
Marin herself is the mother of 22-month-old Emma Amalia Marin and is married to Markus Räikkönen.
Marin has spoken about coming from a low-income family and as managing to succeed primarily because of the Finnish welfare state. While she and her party are likely to be committed to a welfare state, this may encounter opposition from some of their coalition partners.
Widely believed to have the best educational system in the world, Finland also has some of the top human indicators of any country in the world. Now with Sanna Marin as PM and a number of young women also at the helm of affairs, it seems that Finland has much more inspiration to offer the world.
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